This is What Happens When a Videogame Leaks

[Gordon_4]

But how much extraneous stuff did they film with effects that was left on the cutting room floor? There was like a decade(s?) of Superman rewrites trying to get a new Superman movie after the last Reeve one, but I doubt there was a single scene even filmed. Listening to video game development and how much wasted work occurs is pretty unfathomable at times like how Bioware employees didn't even know what the fuck game they were making with regards to Anthem. There's the whole story of Duke Nukem Forever as well. Just hearing Neil Druckmann talk about TLOU2 development is pretty puzzling and that's supposed to be stuff that sells you on how awesome the game is going to be and I'm left thinking that the game could end up being a mess (this is prior to all the leaks and everything). They had the story set 4 years ago (yeah, there's some things you'll want to change) but how is your scope growing and growing, didn't you storyboard it? Why do you need more and more locations? Why are there side quests in the game? Uncharted 4's open areas actively work against what Uncharted is about as a game for example, all those areas just made development longer when actively hurting the game. Even prior to Uncharted 4, the games were made where they just made levels they thought were cool and then they had to somehow tie them all together, how is that a good way of developing a game? In Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog, simulated an ocean for ship levels that don't make a lick of sense.

At no stage did I say this change is positive, well implemented or intelligent. Only that it happens. Project managers are paid obscene - and I do mean obscene - amounts of money to help facilitate smooth change implementation and any changes in direction. What the game and film industry seem largely allergic to however, is the concept of delaying the end product to make sure these developments can be accounted for in terms of money and man hours.

I’ve seen PMs who were veritable wizards and worth twice their weight in gold from the effort and management skills they brought to a project; and I’ve seen PMs whom I wouldn't trust to coordinate a bunk up in a brothel. But even the mightiest of them can buckle under insane direction.

 

[Hawki]

That trailer bothered me too, because the lesbian kiss is the first thing they decided to show, like that was the most important thing in an apocalypse.

Um, wasn't this the reveal trailer?


If I'm right, then the kiss isn't the first thing we saw. And even if it was, I don't really have a problem with it. If people can find love post-apocalypse, isn't that something to be celebrated in-universe? Or at the least, it's hardly an out of place theme in post-apocalyptic fiction, that even after the world's gone to hell, love can be found?

Ellie was never established as lesbian in the first game. It was only in the DLC eight months later that we were shown she likes girls a girl. Even then, it wasn't implied that she didn't like boys or that it was sexual.

I'm not sure what the distinguishing point is there. In fiction, not everything about a character is revealed all at once.

Also, as with the Overwatch "____ is gay now!" I found examples of LGBT gamers making the same sorts of complaints about forced diversity and pandering, so before anyone says that only straight gamers make these arguments, out of prejudice or homophobia or whatever, let's nip that in the bud.

Does pandering exist? Yes. Does "forced diversity" exist? I'd argue technically, but only in a fringe of cases, and "tokenism" is a better term for it. 90% of the time, "forced diversity" is a red herring.

But the Tracer thing was a nontroversy. I mean, even calling it a "reveal" is disingenous because it was 'revealed' in a comic that showed the characters doing things at Christmas, and Tracer got the lion's share, and it was 'revealed' that she was gay purely out of day to day interactions. I've often said that if Emily was replaced with "Emile," then there wouldn't be any uproar, and you wouldn't have to change a single line of dialogue in the comic if Emily was male. So in the minds of a lot of people, it's only "pandering" when it's not hetrosexual.

It's also arguably telling that no-one rose up in arms when Morrison was 'revealed' to be gay, and no-one's ever complained about the het relationships in the game.

 

[Ezekiel]

Um, wasn't this the reveal trailer?


If I'm right, then the kiss isn't the first thing we saw. And even if it was, I don't really have a problem with it. If people can find love post-apocalypse, isn't that something to be celebrated in-universe? Or at the least, it's hardly an out of place theme in post-apocalyptic fiction, that even after the world's gone to hell, love can be found?

Was it the first trailer after eighteen months, as well as the first gameplay trailer? If so, I'd say it was just as important as a reveal trailer. And I still can't think of any other non-romance work that was shown off with a drawn out scene like that, even though plenty are placed in awful environments. People don't do it because the romance or sexuality isn't the main thing people go to see the movie for. Even with the story, there are bigger things I want to know first than the character's sexual preference. He wanted to make a big deal of it. He wanted the controversy. That's obvious.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Here's a scenario:

Let's say that there's a consumer who thinks "I won't buy this game if it has X in it"
Then a leak comes out which confirms that X is in the game.

If the leak never came out, the consumer would have bought the game, found X in it, and regretted their purchase.
But since the leak did come out, the consumer never purchased the game.

Is anyone justified in being upset in this scenario?

How many people would go back in time and tell themselves not to purchase a game or pay for a movie ticket? How many people regret seeing the final season of Game of Thrones, or the new Star Wars trilogy, or anything else that was bad?

Seems like the only reason people have to be upset is that they didn't successfully convince consumers to buy something that they'd later regret. If they really believed in their work, I don't think a leak would make a difference.

If it turns out that your fans don't like what they saw, either change it (a la the Sonic the Hedgehog movie), or stand by it.

Yeah with fan feedback it can be both beneficial and ridiculous. Usually if there’s sound reasoning behind it that should be the first inclination that perhaps the fans deserve a listen. In other cases it’s not really always something that a creative should feel obligated to adjust in an attempt to appease anyone.

It’s a fine line to straddle, and if there’s something warranting complaints like Denuvo kernel codes that hamper PC performance of people that supported the developer then be as vocal as needed for remediation to occur.

On the other hand I personally took an artistic choice like the GoT ending for what it was with a slight shoulder shrug. The books hadn’t even been written yet, so that comparison and basis for complaining was automatically off the table. I got into the series pretty heavily, but I’m really not sure what kind of fan I’d have to be to lose my shit just because Daenerys lost hers. Even when I had hardcore OCD as a teen I’d be able to take the choices made within entertainment with a grain of salt.

 

[happyninja42]

On the other hand I personally took an artistic choice like the GoT ending for what it was with a slight shoulder shrug. The books hadn’t even been written yet, so that comparison and basis for complaining was automatically off the table. I got into the series pretty heavily, but I’m really not sure what kind of fan I’d have to be to lose my shit just because Daenerys lost hers. Even when I had hardcore OCD as a teen I’d be able to take the choices made within entertainment with a grain of salt.

Yeah I've never been able to comprehend the percentage of the human population, that have a tendency to attribute their self-identity and worth, to various products/things they enjoy. So much so that they become offended, and feel personally attacked, if you say you don't like something. Now, to be fair, if you are being an asshole yourself, and expressing your dislike in a very confrontational, or toxic way, the reaction is more understandable, just from a "I don't like being around someone this angry" type of vibe. But if you are being civil, and calm in your criticism of something, and they still get offended and lash out, yeah they've just got problems. They are too invested in the thing in question.

It's one reason why I actively try and limit my involvement and exposure to the nerd culture. Because, while being a card carrying member of it, from my days as an elementary student, playing arcade games at Alladin's Castle, there is a point where it becomes unhealthy. And constantly coming across it in the discourse makes it very tiring to try and actually find anything productive to home in on.

 

[happyninja42]

If I'm right, then the kiss isn't the first thing we saw. And even if it was, I don't really have a problem with it. If people can find love post-apocalypse, isn't that something to be celebrated in-universe? Or at the least, it's hardly an out of place theme in post-apocalyptic fiction, that even after the world's gone to hell, love can be found?

I'm surprised people are surprised that there is a romance/love subplot in any story these days. Romance sells, to be surprised that it's established in a trailer for a product is fairly odd to me.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Also, as with the Overwatch "____ is gay now!" I found examples of LGBT gamers making the same sorts of complaints about forced diversity and pandering, so before anyone says that only straight gamers make these arguments, out of prejudice or homophobia or whatever, let's nip that in the bud.

This is basically where the phrase "get woke, go broke" comes from.

The problem with media trying to be diverse and inclusive, is that they never do it in a way that the LBGT community even wants it done. I think the vast majority of the LBGTQ community who want inclusion, don't want it to be the dominate selling point of the story they just want the stories to acknowledge they exist.

The Lesbian heavy Batwoman TV show bombing hard and just lost their star, not because it's literally nothing but lesbians in a TV show, it's because the show fucking sucks. The writing is shit and it has no relatable character or drama for any audience at all. But they've built that show on a core of "look at all our Lesbians", and that shit doesn't work.

Thus the problems people are going to have with TLOU2, because it's clear they are going to hit people over the head with this shit and it just does not NEED to be there. Bill was a great example of a gay character who's homosexuality literally meant nothing to the story, it was just a nice little organic detail to his character and it didn't linger because it didn't need to.

Overwatch came out sadly in the heat of all this "Not woke enough, too many whites in our games" thing, and as a result Blizzard dropped little hints and nods to suggest that every character is gay except the hamster and the robot. So what happens? Nothing. It's meaningless in game because the characters aren't really characters, they are avatars and nothing more. And all that Overwatch porn that came out.....didn't change (don't ask how I know that), the X-rated creators are making hetero content which highly suggests that such a small number of people actually give a shit about the characters being gay it was almost not worth the marketing to make them so.

But it doesn't matter because they are fictional characters in a game that has no story or relationships and therefore Tracer's favorite flavor of Genitalia is meaningless.

Now again we have the homosexualization of characters being pushed to the forefront of TLOU2 a fact about the characters that literally has no value in trying to survive the apocalypse. Love is love and trying to save, avenge, win back, a loved one is something that is universal and you don't need to go out of the way to make such relationships diverse. People can relate to relationships, the in-game relationship doesn't directly need to correlate to their specific relationship for it to be relatable to them.

Claiming that people not wanting to see homosexuality in media and calling people homophobic is kind of ironic to me. because the virtue of making such a demand for homosexual inclusion and insulting people for not including it kind of makes you a Heterophobe right?

Look if the writers and people working on any project want there to be a focus on LBGT relationships, I say "Go for it." But if you want that product to appeal to audiences, you need to include it in a natural way. Because everyone can tell when it's there just to pander and nobody really wants that, including the LBGT community (mostly).

 

[CriticalGaming]

I'm surprised people are surprised that there is a romance/love subplot in any story these days. Romance sells, to be surprised that it's established in a trailer for a product is fairly odd to me.

Romance sells, sex sells, and the more people you can appeal that sex and romance too, the more popular it will be. There was a reason that every action hero had to have a love interest even in a movie about Kung Fu tournaments or intergallatic bug aliens. The hero trope is a trope for a reason, people like it, and there really isn't any better of an answer to that.

It's the same thing as to why there is a Call of Duty and a Fifa every year. People like them and they buy them. So studios are not going to change shit if it continues to be huge money makers.

Which is why I don't understand why TV, movies, and Comics, keep trying to go the diversity route. It fails every fucking time, because those executives don't understand the point of what inclusion is supposed to mean. For every Bridesmaids successes, there are 10 Charlies Angels failures. Obviously they are going about this the wrong way, yet they keep doing the same shit over and over again, and continue to blame white men for why their movies about unfunny all-girl reboots fail.

 

[happyninja42]

Romance sells, sex sells, and the more people you can appeal that sex and romance too, the more popular it will be. There was a reason that every action hero had to have a love interest even in a movie about Kung Fu tournaments or intergallatic bug aliens. The hero trope is a trope for a reason, people like it, and there really isn't any better of an answer to that.

I know, which is why I am puzzled by people who are, apparently bothered by the fact that a romance plot in the trailer was established. I mean I never played TLOU, and even I know that she had a sort of relationship in the game. The teaser trailer for TLOU2 from like...a year ago, where she's playing the guitar and is like "I'm going to kill them all" My first thought was "oh, well I guess some group killed her lover and she's going on a revenge spree. Because that scene is just screaming that trope." So, then, in the new game, them showing she has a romantic interest, I'm just like "...well...yeah? I mean, duh. It's a common selling point, regardless of orientation of the character. Of course they're going to put it in the trailer." I mean hell, I remember The Transporter, the first one. Remember that completely forgettable film? It clearly indicated a sexual/romantic interest in the trailers. So if a film as vapid and devoid of story and depth as the fucking TRANSPORTER, knows it's a smart move to literally titillate the audience in a trailer, why is it at all shocking that a game series, made famous, and praised for it's deep emotional storytelling, and character development, has a fucking romance plot? That's just...basic storytelling structure. I mean hell, even the movie CRANK, even more stupid than the Transporter, was happy to show us him fucking a girl in public to a cheering crowd in the trailer. There is no practical reason to hide that content in a trailer, when the whole point is to draw interest in the product.

I mean are people freaked out that it spoiled that there is combat in the trailer? Because that's a "well duh" element of the game/story as well. OMG this game has spore zombies!? Why did they tell me that ?! It's got *gasp* other survivors that are at odds with our heroes, and will come into conflict with them in dramatic ways?! OMG don't spoil me on that!! *rolls eyes* It's just really stupid.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I know, which is why I am puzzled by people who are, apparently bothered by the fact that a romance plot in the trailer was established.

I mean I personally haven't seen much outrage in regards to her being gay, other that a bit of eyerolling that they are showing it so predominately. Most of the outrage is coming from the death of a beloved character by a transexual person in zombieland which is a character trait that makes no sense. So the rage of losing a character people like, to a character that doesn't feel like it fits, only compounds the anger. The transgenderism I don't think is the key upsetting issue here, it's just the thing that people are bouncing off of. And when the trailer's first scene is that kiss, it's clear that there is an agenda the game is trying to push and people just don't respond well to that.

I can't wait for the game to actually release, because the more debates and shit and happen around the game, the more interested I get in seeing how much of a train wreck it is.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I mean hell, I remember The Transporter, the first one. Remember that completely forgettable film?

 

[BrawlMan]

Okay, maybe you didn't. But when this trailer came out:


People lost their shit. Hell, I've never even followed Last of Us in any real form, but media doesn't exist in a vacuum, and I caught wind of it. And the fourth most recent comment on the video is "the trans of us," despite the fact that neither of the girls are trans.

I can't comment on Druckmann, but I can comment that there's a recurring pattern that anytime there's an LGBT character in a game, there's always some outburst. Frankly, it's tiring, and I thought Ellie was established as being a lesbian in the first game anyway?

I remember a piss ant on Easy Allies forum who made a raging thread about that trailer. Things got so bad he was banned. Keep in mind, he was kown for causing trouble and instigating fights. The thread he made, and him being so contfrintational about almost any topic was the final nail in the coffin. Honestly, people act like bitches over nothing. Wow, a lesbian kiss in a video game. Never seen one of those before....except in nearly every medium ever. Punk ass bitches.

 

[happyninja42]

I mean I personally haven't seen much outrage in regards to her being gay,

I wasn't commenting about her being gay, that never came up in my post.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I wasn't commenting about her being gay, that never came up in my post.

It didn't but your point was about people getting upset, and the only reason people are upset about the romance is because it's a gay romance. If that trailer opened up with Ellie leaning in to kiss a dude, nobody would have said shit about it.

I was just playing off your point, not directly addressing it.

 

[Adam Jensen]

Have you never worked on any project, creative or otherwise?

Yes, daily. We know what we want though, and we know how to get there. The only thing that can change slightly is the date of the final product, not the vision.

Requirements update, circumstances alter and sometimes a vision is pursued to the logical conclusion that it is untenable and whole projects can become scrapped halfway through. The old army saying “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” is a one way to distill the concept.

You cannot expect any endeavour - especially a creative one - to be rigid and unchanging as it goes on. For example the differences between the initial draft of Star Wars and what gobsmacked a generation in 1977 is amazing.

I'm not saying that the process should be rigid and unchanging, just planned better so that alterations don't require a massive shift of focus and an entirely new vision. That's OK in pre-production. It's absolutely not OK during actual production. In any creative industry.

 

[Hawki]

I'm surprised people are surprised that there is a romance/love subplot in any story these days. Romance sells, to be surprised that it's established in a trailer for a product is fairly odd to me.

Romance definitely sells, but whether it sells in games though is another matter.

Some games, definitely - take the popularity of romance in Fire Emblem for example. However, maybe it's just me, but I've often seen an animus towards romance in games from various sources. As in, not poorly done romance, but the idea of romance in general. Off the top of my head, Halo 4 and StarCraft II. For the former, I remember an argument that John shouldn't care about Cortana at all on the basis that she's hardware/software, and ergo, doesn't matter in any rational sense. For the latter, in regards to the Raynor/Kerrigan relationship, I recall the argument that romance simply doesn't belong in RTS games.

These may be extreme examples, but they're indicative of a vibe I've noticed in some circles.

This is basically where the phrase "get woke, go broke" comes from.

The problem with media trying to be diverse and inclusive, is that they never do it in a way that the LBGT community even wants it done. I think the vast majority of the LBGTQ community who want inclusion, don't want it to be the dominate selling point of the story they just want the stories to acknowledge they exist.

Except how is this what Overwatch didn't do?

The Overwatch "controversy" came from a comic that shows characters doing their things at Christmas. Part of that story is revealing that Tracer lives with her girlfriend. No attention is drawn to it, and as I've already said, if Emily was "Emile," you wouldn't have to change a line of dialogue. Yet somehow this is 'forcing diversity?' I mean, Christ on a bike, are people so fragile that they can't handle the idea that girls are into girls sometimes, and guys are into guys sometimes as well?

The Lesbian heavy Batwoman TV show bombing hard and just lost their star, not because it's literally nothing but lesbians in a TV show, it's because the show fucking sucks. The writing is shit and it has no relatable character or drama for any audience at all. But they've built that show on a core of "look at all our Lesbians", and that shit doesn't work.

I haven't seen Batwoman, but I recall the trailers, and yes, I'd say it's pandering for the reasons you described. But how is that equivalent to anything Overwatch did?

Overwatch came out sadly in the heat of all this "Not woke enough, too many whites in our games" thing, and as a result Blizzard dropped little hints and nods to suggest that every character is gay except the hamster and the robot.

I don't recall any of that.

At this time of writing, Overwatch has 32 heroes. I'll break down the numbers:

-Explicitly Homosexual: 2 (Tracer, Soldier: 76)

-Explicitly Hetrosexual: 3 (Ana, Torbjorn, Widowmaker)

-Hinted Hetrosexual: 6 (D.Va, Ashe, Echo, Genji, McCree, Mercy)

There might be some debate on this, but that's 11 characters out of 32. Just over 33% of the cast have any presence on this roster. So the idea that "every character is gay" just doesn't bear out.

So what happens? Nothing. It's meaningless in game because the characters aren't really characters, they are avatars and nothing more.

That's outright false, every character has backstory, with said backstory playing key roles in the setting and in regards to each other.

And all that Overwatch porn that came out.....didn't change (don't ask how I know that), the X-rated creators are making hetero content which highly suggests that such a small number of people actually give a shit about the characters being gay it was almost not worth the marketing to make them so.

Rule 34.

Also, go onto ff.net, there's no shortage of same sex pairings either. Heck, even when it flies in the face of canon, there's deviations. Why do you think HarryxDraco is so popular in Harry Potter fandom, even though it flies in the face of everything the books show?

Fan pairings aren't a good way to gauge reflection of how characters are treated in-game.

But it doesn't matter because they are fictional characters in a game that has no story or relationships and therefore Tracer's favorite flavor of Genitalia is meaningless.

Except they do have story and relationships?

Now again we have the homosexualization of characters

Ellie was "homosexualized" (seriously, what kind of word is that?) in the original game's DLC, her being lesbian in the second game isn't some big revelation.

Claiming that people not wanting to see homosexuality in media and calling people homophobic is kind of ironic to me. because the virtue of making such a demand for homosexual inclusion and insulting people for not including it kind of makes you a Heterophobe right?

Those two things aren't equivalent.

I've seen lots of people object to the presence of homosexual love in fiction. I've never seen anyone object to the presence of hetrosexual love in of itself. Your average homophobe is going to say something along the lines of "X is pushing an agenda," whereas your average "hetrophobe" is going to say something along the lines of "I wish there was love that represented me."

Now, the whole representation argument is something I'm usually fairly neutral on, but it's dishonest to compare the above as being equivalents. Again, let's go back to Overwatch. When it was revealed that Ana, Torbjorn, and Widowmaker are/were married to opposite sex partners, no one made a big deal of it. When it was revealed that Tracer had a same sex partner? Lots of people flipped their shit. Apparently hetrosexual love was all fine and dandy, whereas homosexual love is "forced." I suppose the best thing that happened was that the fuckwits fucked off because when it was 'revealed' that Soldier: 76 was gay as well, no-one cared.

Look if the writers and people working on any project want there to be a focus on LBGT relationships, I say "Go for it." But if you want that product to appeal to audiences, you need to include it in a natural way. Because everyone can tell when it's there just to pander and nobody really wants that, including the LBGT community (mostly).

I actually agree, but we seem to have different definitions of "pandering."

 

[happyninja42]

Romance definitely sells, but whether it sells in games though is another matter.

Some games, definitely - take the popularity of romance in Fire Emblem for example. However, maybe it's just me, but I've often seen an animus towards romance in games from various sources. As in, not poorly done romance, but the idea of romance in general. Off the top of my head, Halo 4 and StarCraft II. For the former, I remember an argument that John shouldn't care about Cortana at all on the basis that she's hardware/software, and ergo, doesn't matter in any rational sense. For the latter, in regards to the Raynor/Kerrigan relationship, I recall the argument that romance simply doesn't belong in RTS games.

These may be extreme examples, but they're indicative of a vibe I've noticed in some circles.

Both examples you gave, and the reasons you cited for why someone might not like them, neither apply to me. For one, I never played HALO, but to say that romance shouldn't matter because she's software/hardware...well, anyone who has seen Bladerunner 2049 could tell you how faulty a premise that is. Or hell, played Mass Effect, with EDE, before she got a body, she was still a compelling character that you gave a shit about. That sequence where the Normandy is being attacked, and she's being hacked, and Joker has to try and save her, that was engaging. It doesn't matter that she was just software, you gave a shit about her. Also given how much porn there is of Cortana out there, I'd say having her in the franchise helped sell a lot of copies. So that one just seems silly to me, on both a narrative level, and sales level.

And for SC 2, well I actually played that one, and it's not like the RTS stopped being an RTS to be a highschool relationship novel game or something. It was still always an RTS. In all the maps that had anything to do with romance (like you know, storming an enemy facility to rescue his lover), you are doing RTS stuff. And that "rationale" for why it shouldn't be in there, seems to ignore like 90% of action films over the last 30 years, and what the driving motivation is for the protagonist to justify killing hundreds of people. 9/10 it's for a loved one. They killed my wife, they kidnapped my daughter, they killed the dog my dead wife gave me so I don't spiral into crippling depression. Cue rest of the bloody (literally) movie. So...yeah that logic is...well....not logical at all. And as a player, who never played SC 1, and thus had no real investment in these characters, the relationship angle, of Raynor trying to save her, and whether or not he could, despite the rest of the galaxy wanting her dead for what she had become, frankly that was a huge investment hook for me. If Raynor hadn't had the romance subplot, he'd just have been a smaller, less rednecky sounding version of the big guy that was his ally, and I wouldn't have given a quarter of a shit about his story. But the subplot of him feeling guilty for leaving her behind, angry at the Emperor who ordered her abandoned, and then his drive and hope to try and save her when the chance was presented to him....hell that was the entire plot of the game. And it was compelling frankly. It made me give a shit about that grizzled, stoic meathead, and made me want to actually play the story campaign (which is the only place the romance is, and since so many people just play SC 2 for the multiplayer, it's not even a factor for them).